


Sixteen and

by ThinkingCAPSLOCK



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Gen, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkingCAPSLOCK/pseuds/ThinkingCAPSLOCK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>maybe he'd forgotten something important, but he wasn't sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sixteen and

**Author's Note:**

> Done during one of lantadyme's writing parties!   
> Based on a prompt by wigmund on tumblr (IIRC):
> 
> "John wakes up post-game to find himself standing in his room on his 16th birthday with strange and disturbing memories that he can't quite recall."

Your name is John Egbert. Today is your 16th day of birth. And something feels off. 

Your feet touch the ground as you roll off your bed. The floor is colder than you thought it would be, and you recoil your toes. Just a little bit. Just until they no longer touch the ground.

The hems of your pj pants sit an inch too short on your hairy legs. You stare down at the for a moment, eyes still unfocused and bleary. A hand stumbles over the bedside table and you hover it over your glasses. 

For a moment, you see a splash of red and cracked lenses. You squeeze your eyes shut and see a checkered floor. Something flowing, like a river, but thick and red, like jello. Maybe not quite jello. Something that runs a bit better, something that stains under your nails as you reach out for something and-

Your eyes open again and you shake your head. A lock of hair falls into your eye and you scowl. It takes you another quick hand movement before your glasses are back on your face and you can see clearly again.

When you stretch out, your feet touch the ground, and it's much less uninviting than it was a few moments before. The back of your neck itches, and you scratch it absently as you scan your room. There's already a cake placed on your chest. 

Your walls are mostly bare. You squint. There should be something there. 

There's no point dwelling. You get to your feet, and pad across the room. The room that seems so off and so peculiar. You could have sworn that there was another section to it, somewhere that held a larger device. You rub your temples. There's a nagging there, something prying through on the back of your mind. 

It tears a hole through to the front of your conscious, as thin as the head of a needle. As sharp as the edge of a knife. A flash of someone, someone in reds and cloaks and fires, green fires, with burns and screams. You see the same same _same_ checkered floor and you know it so well. You know it but you can't place it and there's something there and you try and widen that tiny hole that tiny needle hole and it stings and burns but-

You open your eyes. You hadn't noticed you closed them. You hadn't really noticed that you were on you knees, on the floor, hands in your hair either. With a shake, you stand up again. This is still your room. There's nothing odd about that. There's nothing different than there was yesterday.

What did you even do yesterday? It didn't seem all that important now, did it? 

It's a slow process, getting dressed. You feel like it's been years since you had to do something so mundane! You wished that you had maybe learned to master your sylladex a bit better and just be- oh. So you did have an outfit stored in there after all. You probably stored it in there last night so that you had something to wear on your birthday.

The blue colours feel a bit off on you. The pants are too dark. Far, far too dark and brown. 

But you blink and they're fine. There's no problem at all. They fit much better than the pajamas, anyway. 

But you blink and they're not fine. And you can hear the echos of someone screaming. It's your own voice. And you just can't can't _can't_ make out the words anymore. But your gut hurts and you feel like it's Rose, and you can see her as clear as day, clad in orange and shining like she should be the new sun. And something dark moves behind her and suddenly there's a lot less orange and a lot more red and it hits you square across the face.

It tastes like metal and- you take a deep, deep breath. You wipe sweat off your forehead. You're being ridiculous! Today is just another day and you probably are just remembering some kinda strange dream. It was what you ate last night, maybe too much pre-birthday treats, knowing your father. 

You know it's a lie. You now that there's something. The same way that you know the floor was cold only a bit ago and that you know that you're sixteen and that you know it's your birthday and you know there's a cake in your room. There is something on the edge of your mind. The needle and the jello and you know, you know what it is.

And it's blood. Streams and prickles. Deltas and waves, a rainbow of colours, from green to rust to indigo to that familiar, ever stemming, bright bright _bright_ red. Some of it's yours and it runs from your fingers, and some of it pools beneath Rose and Dave and Jade and some of it comes from someone else, but you don't know them. 

You feel like you're never going to know them.

Your eyes settle on the cake again. You feel sick to your stomach and you can't explain why you keep seeing the red on the edge of your vision.

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.


End file.
